Kick Off School with a Kick-Butt PBIS/MTSS Roll Out
It’s Time to Get Loud!
Is this your first year Kicking Off PBIS/MTSS or your 10th? Doesn’t matter - we will rock you with a 4-part Roll Out system that will ensure fidelity, sustainability, and FUN! Check out an except from our PBIS Tier 1 Manual - we have a whole chapter dedicated to what schools need to do annually at the start of the school year and then boost a few times throughout the year. The Roll Out chapter of the book covers a lot of ground. This article will focus on one objective only: Roll Outs!
4-Part Roll Out System
You may be asking yourself, “Are we ready for the Roll Out”? Readiness means that all Action Plans are completed and the Tiered Fidelity Inventory (TFI) from PBISapps is up to date. Assess what is completed and ‘In Place’, then assign people and resources to the ‘Not In Place’ list to ensure that all the pieces of your puzzle are ready for your grand Roll Out! Take a look at the PBIS Tier 1 graphic to refresh your memory on everything needed for a Tier 1 PBIS/MTSS system and give yourself and your team a round of applause!
1. Staff Roll Out
The Staff Roll Out will be most successful if you can set aside some time for professional development before the school year begins! The Roll Out for staff (the first year) takes on average about 6 hours - but this should not be in one session. Consider using various training formats including in-person, grade level or department level meeting, digital material, and video media.
During the Staff Roll Out, make sure to remind staff of your Vision, your purpose, and goals for implementing PBIS? One example of a PBIS vision may be, “To empower students to succeed academically and behaviorally”. See Ownership System Chapter for a refresher.
Include administrators in planning since many ‘hourly’ staff are not typically present during the ‘teacher training days’ prior to students beginning class. This will incur fiscal planning and budgeting.
Include ALL School Staff:
Teachers
Paraprofessionals, security staff, administrative assistants
Substitutes (will they get Reinforcement Tickets and ODR forms when they check-in at the office?)
Cafeteria/Crossing Guards/Volunteers
SLP/OT/PT, EDP or alternative school staff
Before/After school program staff
Other...?
Staff Practice
The Staff Roll Out is more than reintroducing PBIS and sharing the good news that the system is complete and ready to Roll Out. It is about teaching all staff to implement the system. Here are some elements to practice:
Reteach the Expectation Matrix and remind staff why it is necessary
Introduce the lesson plans and practice teaching the expectations
Practice reinforcing students with your tickets when expected behavior is demonstrated and teach the Reinforcement Matrix so staff know what students are supposed to do with the tickets
Allow staff to practice giving each other tickets and provide corrective feedback to ensure it’s done using the 3-step reinforcement process
Provide instructional feedback
Teach the Accountability System, provide case studies and make sure staff understand the Flowchart and forms
Practice filling out the ODR and Minor Behavior Tracking Form
2. Student Roll Out
Before we can expect students to meet our expectations, we need to explicitly TEACH them our school-wide Expectations, Reinforcement, and Accountability Systems.
The Teaching System Chapter in the KOI PBIS Tier 1 Manual outlined strategies for teaching students your system elements. Lesson plans and video examples were shared. Review that chapter when planning your Roll Out activities.
Passport Activity or Learning Stations
A popular approach to rolling out PBIS at the beginning of the school year is to have classes or groups rotate to the different locations listed on your Expectation Matrix. Students are then taught and can practice demonstrating the expectation skills/rules in the location where they need to be applied.
Tips:
Trained staff (elementary school) or students ( middle and high school) can be stationed at each location
Set up a rotation schedule so teachers know when/where to take their students (and attend with them)
Print Passport style booklets and give students a stamp or sticker for demonstrating the expectation skills at each location
3. Parent Roll Out
Plan a special Roll Out of your PBIS System for parents and community members. Popular examples of communicating your schools Behavioral Expectations and Reinforcement System with parents include:
Newsletters - digital or print
Open house
Notes home
School website
Social media posts, videos and content
4. Community Roll Out
Take advantage of sharing your PBIS system with your community and local businesses because it takes a village to raise a child. Some ideas include:
Press release to your local community paper, radio or TV stations or tweet the regional journalist covering education news
Post “Community Expectations” in local stores, restaurants, coffee shops, theaters and other shops (with the owner’s permission, of course)
Share reinforcement tickets with store owners and teach them how to use them to acknowledge student demonstrating school Expectations such as ‘Respect’ in their establishment
Replace Some Staff Training with a Video Lesson
Loom is a free and easy video creation tool your team can use to create training videos for staff or students. The demonstration below also shows how to use built-in features to see who has (and who hasn’t) watched your training video.
More Roll Out Resources
KOI Education has your back with Creative Common Licensed Resources that you can download for free and edit, adapt, and reuse to make the resource contextually relevant to your school. Add your school logo and branding, just be sure to cite where you found the resource and the idea - koi-education.com.
Artifact Checklist-Tier 1 (Google Doc) (PDF)
Rollout - Checklist (PDF)
Rollout - Action Plan (Google Doc)
koi-education.com/books available on Amazon and AppleBooks